Netanyahu’s Likud party loses support over judicial overhaul controversy, according to recent polls

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, headed by the Likud party, is reportedly losing support, while opposition groups are gaining followers over Israel’s judicial overhaul, according to polls published by Israel’s Channel 12 and Kan news outlets.

According to the polls, if elections were to be held today, the right-wing Likud party reportedly would drop from 32 Knesset seats to merely 25. The National Unity party, a centrist opposition party headed by former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, would grow from 12 to 21 or 23 seats, emerging as Israel’s second largest party, with only two fewer seats than Likud. Yesh Atid, the current leading opposition party led by former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, would reportedly drop from 24 to 22 seats.

Overall, the Likud-led coalition government would lose its current parliamentary majority and only receive 53 or 54 seats, far from the required 61-seat minimum to qualify as a majority coalition. By contrast, all the opposition parties that were part of the previous Bennett-Lapid government would potentially be able to muster 61 or 62 seats, thereby forming a new government.

In June 2021, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett succeeded to form the most diverse government in Israel’s history, with a coalition consisting of parties from across the political spectrum, including the Arab Islamist Ra’am party.

In a New York Times op-ed in November, Bennett praised his short-lived but diverse government as a solution to Israel’s deeply entrenched societal divisions.

“We called ourselves a good-will government. We proved to ourselves and to those outside our coalition that people with radically different political opinions can work incredibly well together. The world is more polarized than ever. The model we presented was one of cooperation and unity. Of transcending your tribe for the good of your nation,” he stated.